It's in the buildings and it's in the streets, between the cracks in the pavement

Antenna

Friday, 8 July 2011

OPEN MICHAEL

i am here at the station in kings heaththursday night is 'simply overmiked' nightmy first serious stab at live solo performancei order a pint of grapefruity moondance aleand grab a table by the barabout twenty or so people are scatteredaround the back room of the pubunder a big blackboarda large table of punters chats gregariouslyopened birthday cards littering the tablesi've rehearsed four songs before heading out 'mymomatosis' and 'fourth of july'off the all seeing i(t-shirt proudly sported)and two brand new tracks'god's country' and 'an innocent abroad'the latter polished off a few days agoas the words and music flooded outben our host for the eveningplaces a sign-up sheet on the bari secure second billing after a threesome called kings of spainben kicks off proceedingshe has a decent voicecombined with the kind of technical ability on the acoustic guitarthat i can only envyan easy way of picking bluesy chordswhich like those shimmying football maestrosi could never dream of emulatingben has some clever machine that slowly builds up a sequencestrummed and thumped guitar,finger clicks and strange gurglesover which he improvises a solo(a kind of digital one-man-band)it's good but all cover versions of other people's songsas far as i can fathomwould i rather be a clumsy lennonian/kilbeyesque guitaristwho writes his own materialor a blues picker who never came up with a song in his life?i know which one i'd choose!after ben the kings of spain do their thanga strongly rhythmic combocomplete with mariachi style trumpet playeri tough act to followbefore i know itmy name is being announcedi plug intest the mikeand launch into 'myxomatosis' with as much gusto as i can summoni am greeted with general indifferencethe groups of friends go on talkingstrangely i'm not botheredi'm up there performingtheir losshappily the song is almost note-perfectwith just a couple of stumblesat the endi suddenly find myself departing from the scriptjumping up and downas i manically strum out the closing bars faster and fasteruntil i go out in a blaze of glorythis seems to get a reaction...and a round of applausethe other three songs pass relatively uneventfullyas i come off stage to polite applauseben the host casually sidles over'that myxomatosis was crazy, man' he saysi have made an impact...